The Deadlings set up shop on Windows Phone and Windows 8

Last year, Windows Phone Central broke the news that Artifex Mundi would be bringing a puzzle platformer called Deadlings to Windows Phone and Windows 8. Artifex Mundi is most well-known for its hidden object puzzle adventure games like the Nightmares from the Deep series, making Deadlings something of a departure for the Polish publisher.

Death takes a holiday

Deadlings has a whimsical premise in which zombies have overrun the streets and gotten in everyone’s way. Death sees the problem as an opportunity to make some friends, so he pulls the undead minions off of the streets and puts them to work in his factory. There he aims to train them to be productive citizens instead of just complaining about games not having Xbox Achievements.

Death has a variety of Deadlings to command, with each type specializing in different actions. Bonesack can run and jump; Creep sticks to ceilings and sings Radiohead songs (maybe not the singing); Lazybrain moves slowly and carefully; and Stencher flies around by passing gas. Nasty, but that’s zombies for you.

Players will use their arsenal of Deadlings to solve over 100 puzzles. You’ll have to switch back and forth between the different undead dudes in order to complete the more complex levels. The more tasty brains your minions collect during a level, the better your rating. With so many puzzles and two different modes to play – strategy and arcade – you’ll have a tough time outliving the Deadlings.

As usual with Artifex Mundi's games, Deadlings is on sale for a special introductory price at launch. You might want to get it now before the price goes up.

Who, specifically, left and who replaced them? We've been targeting several Microsoft executives on Twitter with #SaveXboxWP, but it would be good to know that we're targeting the right people.

It's really frustrating that whoever stopped supporting Xbox on WP doesn't realize what an important distinguishing feature it is from iOS and Android. Exclusive features are what will get people to make the switch.

It's only a distinguishing feature if you have an XBOX 360 or One. iOS has Game Centre for social gaming and achivement wagging...and Android has a similar setup through Google+.

Even PC gaming happens primarily through Steam...w/ Steam achievements....Isn't LIVE gaming for the PC being shut-down as of July this year?

MS should just make a mammoth deal and transition all the PC, WP, WIN8, XBOX online gaming and marketplace to Steam. MS could focus on Apps and services and let the genius' at Valve deal with the gaming side of the business.

Beside...Paul just said that MS was slinging around $$ to secure and lock-in dev. support for XBOX Live at one point...isn't that kind of backward and a sign of poor health?

"It's only a distinguishing feature if you have an XBOX 360 or One", or a Windows 8 PC, or a Windows RT tablet, or a Windows Phone, or an Xbox, or a PC with Games for Windows Live. Sure, the last two are either dead or being phased out, but the point is that achievements won there are still on your Gamerscore account --> Xbox gaming has a presence across a plethora of devices: game consoles, personal computers, tablets and phones. The knock offs on iOS and Android are much more confined and much less developed. The iOS and Android knockoffs exist because Xbox is so successful and they got a little scared when Windows Phone 7 launched with fairly impressive Xbox support. Microsoft has failed to live up to that hype, though, regarding Xbox gaming on Windows Phone.

Your suggestion for Microsoft to throw in the towel on Xbox gaming and hand it over to Steam is an odd one. Xbox is much huger than Steam. Steam has 75 million accounts and they're all confined to PC gaming. In contrast, Xbox across all devices (Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows 8, Windows RT, GFWL, Windows Phone 7, and Windows Phone 8) has a presence on hundreds of millions of devices in a much broader array of categories (consoles, PCs, tablets, and phones).

I don't understand your final post. Microsoft spending money to secure and lock in development for Xbox Live is "kind of backward and a sign of poor health"? It's the opposite of that: it's forward and a sign of good health. The problem is that aggressive strategy for platform building is seemingly gone, particularly for Windows Phone.

"much huger" eh? Just wait until the Steam Machine brah...consolers and PC'ers will join hands.

Microsoft would do well to get in bed with Valve before it's too late, if it isn't already...They almost single-handedly (I still like GoG) cut MS out of the gaming business on those 100's of millions of PCs you mentioned (compatibility may vary!).

You want a new PC game, where you go? Yep.

As for paying to bring games to Wp with LIVE onboard. WP is kind of the red-headed stepchild, or ugly duckling (or something!) of the mobile world. I'd much rather have people like and want to spend time swimming with the ugly duckling than pay them to play along for 5 minutes and then take off when their contractual commitment is up. And lots of the headlines here, and elsewhere indicate that this is the approach that MS is working towards with the OS and Store submission processes.

Basically, when you've got a 5% marketshare hammer, you're gonna have a hard time bashing a round block into a square hole.

Yes, the number of Xbox gamers on Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8, Windows RT, Windows 8, and Games for Windows Live is much larger than the 75 million Steam accounts. The Steam Machine will flop. The Steam service will continue to thrive, but only in it's current niche of PC gaming.

It is already too late for Microsoft to acquire Steam. Valve would never let it go given its current popularity.

Interesting because most of the PC games I want aren't on Steam. They're on Origin. Titanfall, baby.

Windows Phone is a new platform, but a few years old, with almost no market share. Of course developers require incentives to develop for it. Yet you are mocking Microsoft for formerly trying to provide these incentives? You should be knocking them instead for giving up.